In 2024, the Night Time Industries Association reported that five nightclubs and two music venues are closing their doors for good in the UK every week. With rising rents and the cost of living crisis, venues are often having to find new ways of bringing in business.
Future Yard is a new kind of music venue thriving in Birkenhead, a town set along the west bank of the River Mersey on the outskirts of Liverpool. Founded by locals Chris Torpey and Craig Pennington, their aim is to create a self-sustaining model that not only brings live music to the town, but trains the next generation of artists and industry workers to develop their own skills.
We had a chat with one of Future Yard’s founders Chris about how they’re pushing the boundaries of the traditional music venue offering.
What is Future Yard, and how did it start?
Future Yard is a community music venue in Birkenhead that is part of a growing sector within the live music industry where social responsibility is measured up alongside the commercial performance of the organisation. So, as well as putting on live music events, we have a big focus on community building, sustainability, and giving people opportunities.Myself and Craig are the co-founders and we used to run a music magazine in Liverpool which focussed on new music and DIY culture in the city. One thing that kept coming up with the artists we spoke to was the idea of spaces for artists where everything is under one roof. Places where people can hang out but where they can also rehearse, a bar where they can perform, and the ability to develop what they’re doing. We’ve tried to take that idea and build something that is more than just a music venue.
We got the keys to the building in February 2020 and then COVID happened, but it worked out okay because we used that period of lockdown to essentially build the infrastructure. We painted a big slogan saying ‘the future is birkenhead’ which offered a sense of hope during that period of isolation. We did some live stream shows and used that period to do research and development ready for when we could open up.
What’s the significance of opening a space outside of a major city?
We really wanted to open a space in Birkenhead, which is on the other side of the Mersey river to Liverpool. It is a suburb of Liverpool but for many psychological reasons it’s not viewed as part of Liverpool because of the river dividing it. I’m from this side of the river and all my life I’ve been going to shows and engaging in culture on the other side. Liverpool is an amazing city, it’s got music in its lifeblood but there was nothing happening in Birkenhead so we wanted to do something for the people around here. We got a lease on a building and [the building owners] secured £35 million from the Levelling Up fund for cultural regeneration in Birkenhead, and our project is the recipient of just over £1 million of that. We can see that regeneration happening in the area, with new businesses starting up, there’s a sense of hope here now. We want to change the way people think about where they’re from and for that to be done with the people that live here already at the centre of it.
How does Future Yard differ from your usual music venue?
From the beginning, we had our own ideas about what a music venue should do. Music venues are amazing places that bring people together but they’re kind of a wasted asset if they’re only open from 7pm-11pm. There’s so many more things that can happen if you look at it as a creative space. Musicians love hanging out in venues, they feel at home there so we wanted to expand on that and offer more.
Live shows are still our bread and butter, but we also do development programmes for artists, we’ve got five rehearsal studios, we’ve got a kitchen, bar, and coffee shop. We run shows for kids on Sunday mornings, we have a music centre for teenagers on a Saturday morning. We have an artist mentorship programme to help people learn about the music industry, as well as songwriting sessions, and a programme called Sound Check where we teach young people how to do the tech, production and management side of putting on shows. Nearly all of our live shows have participants doing shadowing work and some of the people that have been through our training programmes have gone on to become employees. The idea is that every gig we do is not just an opportunity to get people through the door to see a show, it’s an opportunity for people to learn new skills as well. As we’re a 280 capacity venue, there’s the opportunity that you could rehearse here, join a development programme and then end up headlining a show here yourself.
Is there enough infrastructure in the wider local area for young people to stay and develop their skills or do they often need to look further afield for opportunities?
There’s a decent amount in Liverpool but not in Birkenhead directly. Liverpool has a number of really good venues, record labels and festivals. It’s also home to the publishing company Centric which employs a lot of people and is a great example of a success story within the music sector. EMI North is the first major record label to be based outside of London and we’re seeing a lot more infrastructure moving this way rather than being completely centred around London now. There’s so many people that want to go to events and get involved in music here, and while we realistically don’t yet have as much to offer as London, I think there’s definitely a strength developing across the North.
How do you strengthen the flow between education, training and the music industry?
We’ve partnered with Foundry who are a training provider to help us reach a wider variety of people. It means that we’re also able to work with people who have additional needs as they already have staff that are trained and processes to help us provide the right environment. We try not to have too many people on our courses who have already been to university as we want to make sure we’re reaching the people that need it most, but actually we’ve found that quite often those people had learnt everything in a classroom and had no real life experiences. The key thing is that we want to help the people already living in our neighbourhood, and in order to do that we’ve partnered with local organisations and charities who are speaking to people that need help the most. There should be no barrier to entry – if we can get a bursary to cover someone's travel costs or provide them with a bit of food in order to get here then we do. We also offer teachings of functional skills like maths to get them up to GCSE grade.
We’ve noticed over the years that some of the young people that join our courses are quite troubled, they might come from the education system or the care system with no support or sense of direction and end up suffering from anxiety or depression. But we see how their self-confidence changes. Several of them actually went on to gain employment after their course, and in their exit interviews they said how their self-confidence had grown. So we see how important that connection is, and we’ve been working with local schools, colleges and Music Hubs so that these young people have a next step they can take.
To find out more about Future Yard head to the links below.
www.futureyard.org
@future_yard